HIPAA Blog

[ Friday, March 19, 2010 ]

Another reason to adopt an Electronic Medical Record system? (Slightly OT): Over at the Software Advice blog, Chris Thorman throws out a couple of additional reasons for medical practices to migrate to an EMR system, perhaps sooner rather than later. The primary focus: having an EMR makes participating in clinical trials much easier and productive. I've heard presenters at physician conferences for years talk about the potential profits from participating in clinical trials (my sister works for a British company that conducts and manages clinical trials, and I've helped a rheumatology practice set up a separate clinical trials entity), but for a lot of practices, getting involved in clinical trials turns into a tar baby that's not worth the extra effort. Chris' point is that, with an EMR, many of the headaches of clinical trial involvement (which seem to be mostly about recordkeeping) either go away entirely or are reduced to an easily manageable hassle).

Since you're going to have to become a "meaningful user" at some point, why not consider the possible clinical trials payday as an additional incentive?